Thursday, January 12, 2012

I read 69 books in 2011. My disclaimer is that some were re-reads and some weren't very long!

Highlights:

Finished Emma, by Jane Austen. I read it on my Kindle and it was wonderful!

Discovered Jim Butcher's Storm Front and sequels. :D :D

Read The Lady and Her Tiger, by Pat Derby. Intense non-fiction about animal training and animals in film. Fortunately, many things have changed.

Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer. I just love reading this famous author of Regency romance! :D I don't know how she can keep surprising me.

Read two new Alexander McCall Smith books. They are like warm chocolate for me. :)

One of my favorite re-reads was a Young Adult book called Lucy the Giant, by Sherri L. Smith. Lucy, a very large-for-her-age Alaskan teenager who lives with her drunken father, finds a new sort of family when she goes to work on a crab fishing boat with people who think she's an adult. But her old life follows her, and to really grow up she has to find a way to face it instead of running again.

Also re-read both beloved Watership Down books, a couple of Diana Wynne Jones fantasies (bliss!), some Jim Kjelgaard dog stories, any number of A. A. Fair mysteries (old but excellent, and very fast-paced!), and Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome's incomparable comedy.

I wrote this story ages ago to go with my other Mars stories, whichwere published in the old RGR years ago. I had sent this one to"Space Westerns," however. They sent me an acceptance after a longtime, but never published it, so eventually I asked for it back.(They're supposed to be back to publishing sometime next year, but inthe meantime I'm very glad my story found a home at RGR!) :-)

When I was younger I had a whole Mars-related timeline/universe in myhead and I loved playing with it, though I never seemed to get the BIGone written! Some of this universe still persists for me andinfluences my writing. Though I still don't know if I'll ever write"the big one!" :)

Anyway, I'm very grateful that my fourth Mars-related story has a homenow, even though it's taken a few years. :)

And, after I talked with my mom about my short Christmas romance, I realized that I might have enough that didn't come through in the story (but that I thought had!), to create a whole novel out of it. And that would be an excellent Christmas present (belated, of course).

In other news, I am REALLY getting frustrated with my S-L-O-W connection and old computer access. I'm about ready to swear off both until I can do better!

In other-other news, I'm really getting somewhere with my Regency romance, "Laurie's Painter." It's over 30,000 words now. I love Regency, never thought I would be able to write it, but am feeling hopeful for this story to work out.

Also, I still can't get Blogger to stop turning my tags and titles into sanskrit, so once again, this entry is without. >:(